


Strangely Comforting

by breea1 (kipplemine)



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Complete, Crack, Crossover, Gen, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kipplemine/pseuds/breea1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Re-post of a fic to Wraithbait. Rodney and Ronon save the world. President Hayes is, eventually, grateful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangely Comforting

President Hayes was having a truly terrible last week in office. After a fairly uneventful two terms (as far as the general public were concerned, anyway) he had been congratulating himself on a job well done when, five days before he was officially due to hand over the reins to his successor, he found himself suddenly coordinating the defence of his planet against a terrible foe that he and all his advisors thought were safely light years away. 

Of course his own surprise at events was decidedly overshadowed by the surprise of the rest of the population of Earth who, until days before, had mainly been concerned with blowing each other up instead of having to blow up life sucking aliens who had materialised out of nowhere and were now snacking their way through the world.

The battle for Earth had not gone well since the Wraith had dropped out of hyperspace and proceeded to treat the terrified humans below like a slightly more lively than usual buffet. Stargate Command had been the first to go under the wave of evil that had dropped from the skies; all contact lost and in the days that followed it had proved impossible to even confirm if Cheyenne Mountain still stood. The next targets were the biggest military installations across the planet, one after the other with thousands of lives lost in a frantic and futile attempt to fight back, before the wraith finally turned their attentions to the general populace. 

Approximately one fifth of which now resembled thousands of years old carcasses and were crumbling into dust where they had been tossed aside after being consumed by the new masters of Earth.

Thanks to some reverse engineered Asgaard shielding technology gained when the little grey guys had forked over their knowledge and then promptly bitten the dust, the Whitehouse still stood – barely – but unfortunately the rest of Washington had suffered a terrible fate and so the president was understandably shaken when he was taking shelter in a non-descript office after being reassured it was absolutely, one hundred percent _totally_ impenetrable to alien offences and cunning beaming technologies and a very bad tempered Canadian and Satedan appeared out of nowhere and proceeded to ignore him as they continued the argument they had obviously been having before transport. 

“...and you people never listen to me no matter how many times I tell you I’m a genius and, oh yes, am proved right, right, _right_!” Rodney McKay, formerly of the Pegasus galaxy and now rather grudgingly visiting his home one, placed his bags on the floor and ignored the open mouthed President to glare at his companion. “You’re all idiots!”

Ronon Dex, ignoring both his teammate and President Hayes, activated his headset and grunted, “We’re here.” He squinted at McKay when the shorter man huffed in annoyance, adding, “I just have to wait till McKay’s fixed stuff before I shoot him right?” He glanced around the room and took in the sight of Hayes standing holding a zat on him and rolled his eyes. “Your guy’s still alive.”

Rodney scowled and stabbed an irritated finger at the dishevelled leader of a previous free world. “See! See! Utter morons! You! Idiot! Put that down!” He dropped to his haunches and began to hastily open the bags he had brought with him and haul out pieces of what looked like incredibly complicated and advanced alien technology. “Honestly, we fly a ridiculous distance in an unimaginably short space of time, no small thanks to yours truly who hasn’t had more than three hours of consecutive sleep since this whole debacle started, and the first thing that happens is that we have weapons pulled on us by the very person we’ve come here to save! I don’t know why we even bother.”

Ronon glanced down at his companion, grunted to himself in satisfaction at was apparently a familiar sight of Rodney doing something outlandishly brilliant with unfathomable equipment and bitching loudly at the same time and then looked at Hayes, still clutching his zat. “Where’s your escort?”

Hayes blinked. “What?” He stared up at the scowling giant and then down at the equally disgruntled scientist on the floor. “My escort? Who the hell are you people?”

On the floor Rodney interrupted his own irritated rant to snap, “Ronon, ten minutes! I need you to buy me some more time.” His eyes anxiously ran over the face of the life signs scanner in his hands. “We’ll be overrun in less than six if you don’t do something.”

Nodding briskly Ronon brought his own, far more impressive, alien weapon to bear and effortlessly disarmed Hayes at the same time. “On it.” He whirled in a blur of leather and long hair. “Your guards outside?”

Hayes, blinking once more at the speed with which the hard faced warrior moved, spluttered, “Hey! Give that back.” Hauling himself to his full height, and feeling rather inadequate and silly as he did it, he snapped, “I _order_ you to give me that back!”

Rodney snorted and tossed the life signs detector aside. “Yeah, that’ll work.” He glanced up briefly. “And answer his question. Where are your grunts? I can’t get a read on human life signs with this thing; I’ve calibrated it to focus on the wraith and nothing else.” His mouth pinched. “Of course if someone had given me just a few more seconds to grab some extra equipment I would have been able to bring along a normal detector and we wouldn’t be reduced to questioning a drooling idiot and working blind in an extremely time sensitive situation with the fate of two galaxies hanging in the balance!”

Now by the door, Ronon sighed heavily and stared gloomily at the floor for a moment before turning impatient eyes back towards Hayes. “Your ground troops – how many left?”  
His mouth hanging open, Hayes spluttered some more – finding to his embarrassment that he was nowhere as good under extreme alien pressure as he would have liked to think. He honestly didn’t know how the likes of O’Neill and Hammond had done it for so long, but he wasn’t ruling out some kind of alien mood levellers being left out of reports over the years. “I...we were beaten back. The last of my protection detail are trying to hold back the...invaders.” He drew himself up wearily once more. “I took refuge in here and they’re repelling as best they can.”

“Right.” Ronon nodded shortly. “Be back soon. McKay, stay here.” He flipped the pitifully inadequate lock on the door and bared his teeth as the sounds of a savage and terrible battle suddenly flooded the room. “McKay!” He snarled irritably when the scientist jumped and hurriedly refocused his attention from his equipment to his teammate. “Stay _here_.”

“Yes, yes.” Rodney waved an impatient hand and managed to convey with an eye roll and shrug of his shoulders that Ronon had just moved to prime position on the list Rodney had of all the moronic people he was forced to endure in his day to day life. “Because obviously the first thing I’m going to do is forget that the aforementioned fate of two galaxies rests alone on my thankfully manly shoulders and rush headlong after you in a bid to share in some of the blood-soaked glory you’re champing at the bit to cover yourself in.” He glanced up again. “Go. I’ll be here. Nine minutes.” He didn’t wait to see Ronon flee the room, but bent his head again, continuing, “If anything happens to him while he’s saving your sorry skin I will personally make what remains of your pitiful life before the wraith get you unimaginably agonising.”

It took a second but Hayes realised the last comment was directed at him. “What?”

“He dies, you die.” Not taking his eyes from the screen before him, Rodney tapped a few keys on his laptop and made a pleased sound in the back of his throat. “Excellent. Once again I prove myself smarter than just about everybody I’ve ever met.” He shot an annoyed look up at Hayes. “And shut that damn door, the noise is distracting.”

Feeling like his life was heading into ever more surreal territory, Hayes tottered across the room and shut the door. He stared at the wood for a moment and then turned and slid down the panel until his butt hit the floor. “Who _are_ you people?”

“Yes, because this is exactly the time for social niceties.” In a voice dripping with withering scorn Rodney answered without once taking his eyes off the screen before him and ceasing his frantic tapping of his keyboard. “Really, your grasp of priorities is mindboggling.” Spinning on his knees he grabbed another laptop and started hammering at the keys on that one. “I’m Rodney McKay and that was Ronon Dex. We’re here to save you.” Snorting a slightly hysterical laugh, Rodney muttered under his breath, “Leia was so much prettier.” He slapped a hand to the side of his head. “Radek, I’m set. Send me what you have.” He darted a lightening fast look at Hayes. “You. Away from the door. The last thing we need is you catching a stray blast through the wood; I’ve disabled the shields so we could come riding to the rescue.” 

Shaking his head like he was trying to clear water from his ears, Hayes said weakly, “I was told that was impossible.”

Looking increasingly tense, Rodney tapped a few more keys and then reclaimed his original laptop. “And I said I was Rodney McKay. That’s explanation enough I think. Away from the damn door.” Grabbing the first thing that came to hand – and that wasn’t essential for that continuing existence of the human race – Rodney threw a heavy office stapler with admirable accuracy at the president’s head. “I’m going to be enough trouble for this little stunt without having to present your dead body to my people afterwards.”

Ducking, Hayes rolled hastily away from the door and rather bravely towards Rodney. “Hey!” He sat himself cautiously upright when Rodney went back to ignoring him once he had been obeyed and questioned rather indignantly, “And what do you mean trouble?”

With amazing – or troubling – timing the answer came rather loudly from out of nowhere before Rodney could draw breath. “ _MCKAY_!”

“Oh crap.” The small murmur from Rodney was accompanied by his shoulders hunching up around his ears and his fingers moving impossibly faster in his frantic task. “Oh, crap, crap, crap.”

“McKay, I know you can hear me.” The furious drawl echoed around the small office and had Hayes looking wildly around for the source. “I swear to God, if you don’t answer me in the next five seconds I am going to have you running laps and you and your people practising safety drills every hour on the hour for the next three months.”

Now looking like his shoulders were trying to eat his head, Rodney winced and snapped with a spirited attempt at his usual bravado, “Busy! Can’t talk now!”

“Oh you’ll make time.” The voice sounded positively venomous now. “And you’ll start by explaining why you and Ronon have transported off Atlantis, against my express damn orders, and according to Zelenka are doing the exact damn thing you were ordered not to do no less than three damn times!”

Hayes blinked, repeating faintly, “Atlantis?”

Despite his obvious discomfort at the roar the voice ended his tirade on, Rodney’s mouth twitched in reluctant mirth. “Wow. That’s a lot of damning. I didn’t know you cared...Arthur.” He tapped another few keys when a savage hissing sounded and then tapped a final one with a flourish. “Okay, done. Radek, I’ll leave the rest to you. Don’t screw it up. Sheppard, we still have another few minutes until we can implement a successful launch.” Wincing again, Rodney stood and reached for the weapon lying unnoticed by Hayes on the floor amongst all the technology. “I’m going to help Ronon.”

“What?” The voice reached new levels of fury. “He’s not there? Where the hell is he? McKay!” Throwing Hayes a hunted look, Rodney started towards the door. “McKay, you stay right where you are, that’s an order! McKay!” With one last desperate look at the president, Rodney opened the door and slipped from the room. “McKay! Rodney!” The bellow echoed around the room as the door shut and the voice yelled, “Zelenka, get me down there right now! Rodney!”

Hayes cleared his throat uncertainly. “Um, hello?”

There was a brief pause before the voice snapped, “Who the hell is this?”

Feeling absurdly like he had been called before his tenth grade principal, Hayes answered the disembodied voice with as much dignity as he could. “Hayes. President Hayes.” 

This time the pause was considerably longer but when the voice came again it was laden with all the world weary gloom that was currently weighing down Hayes’s much beleaguered soul. “Oh for fucks _sake_.”

“Son,” Hayes wearily to his feet and moved to where the abandoned equipment Rodney had left in his wake lay strewn about. He looked down, saw a P90 and bent to pick it up. “I couldn’t agree more.” And hefting his borrowed weapon the president of America followed his strange saviours out the door.

~*~*~*

When President Hayes finally met the owner of the angry disembodied voice some forty-eight hours later he was able to show somewhat more of the qualities that had gotten him elected in the first place and he was a little less stressed than he had been at their first encounter. “Colonel Sheppard, it’s an honour to meet you.” Standing in the ruins of what had been the Oval office and freshly washed and pressed thanks to his recent hasty broadcast to what was left of the world, Hayes held out his hand to the tall, lean man striding towards him. “The people of this world, actually the Milky Way, owe you a great....” The president trailed off as Sheppard continued striding forward and straight past him and completely ignored his Commander in Chief. “Debt of gratitude?” Hayes frowned and dropped his hand, watching as Sheppard closed in on a very sheepish looking Rodney McKay and Ronon Dex skulking at the back of his somewhat depleted crowd of advisors. He complained absently, “You know, I kinda think standards have slipped around here since we got invaded by aliens. I am still sort of his boss you know.”

“I feel your pain.” Strolling in Sheppard’s wake, Jack O’Neill sauntered into the room, absently jiggling a baby in his arms. “Folks never seem to listen to me as much as they should do either.” He directed a piercing glare over his shoulder at Samantha Carter and the rest of SG1 as they followed in his wake chatting genially with Teyla and sighed mournfully when they all completely ignored him. “See? I get no respect.”He nodded amicably at the president. “Sir, how ya doin’?”

Hayes stared at O’Neill as he adjusted his hold on the baby and then shook his head. “I don’t even want to know. Good to see you, Jack.”

“Likewise.” Continuing his unhurried stroll straight to the nearest unoccupied seat, O’Neill sank down with a sigh and without waiting for permission, grinning, “Sorry, old bones.” He held aloft the small child he clutched. “Chunky kid. You do the math.”

Teyla’s head whipped around from where she was chatting quietly with Vala and Samantha, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “Chunky?”

O’Neill jerked his chin in Sheppard’s direction. “Hey, look, McKay and Dex!” He avoided the smirks of his former team and his president as he squirmed under Teyla’s affronted maternal gaze. “Bet you’re glad to see them, huh?”

Teyla’s frown increased for a moment before her face smoothed and she inclined her head grudgingly. “Yes.” Her gaze flickered to her teammates and she sighed deeply. “Excuse me.” She parted from her companions and stepped hastily towards what looked like an epic implosion of Lieutenant Colonel on the other side of the room. “I must greet my friends. John!”

His head snapping around from where he had his teammates crowded up against the wall – although in Ronon’s case it looked rather more like amused leaning – Sheppard curled his lip in warning. “Stay out of this, Teyla. They got it coming.”

Rodney scowled in protest. “Oh we so do not! We saved the day – again!” His chest puffed out proudly. “Well, actually I saved the day, as usual, and Ronon helped.” He flinched under the sudden savage glare from his tallest teammate, hurriedly adding, “A lot! You really helped quite a lot!”

“Saved your ass.” Still glaring, Ronon leaned down to growl, “Which I wouldn’t have had to do if you’d have stayed put.”

Rodney’s mouth fell open in outrage. “Uh, hello? Who saved who exactly? _I_ wasn’t the one who was surrounded by wraith and had dropped his weapon and was about to get life sucked!”  
Looking positively murderous, Ronon’s lips parted in a savage snarl. “Had them right where I wanted them.”

Rodney snorted and crossed his arms over his chest, his nose tilting into the air in a superior manner. “Yes. If by ‘right where you wanted them’ you _actually_ mean ‘had a sudden burning desire to be a tasty Satedan snack’!”

Ronon’s eyes bulged. “I was winning.”

“Oh you were not.” Scornfully Rodney rolled his eyes and then turned to Sheppard in appeal. “He so wasn’t winning. They had him practically....hey, are you okay? You’re looking a little flushed.”

Teyla flicked a glance at John and privately thought he wasn’t looking so much ‘flushed’ as ‘purple’ but bravely stepped into the breach anyway. “Ronon, Rodney, it is a relief to see you both unharmed.” She stepped lightly between the three men and drew first Ronon and then Rodney into an Athosian embrace. “We were greatly concerned when we realised you had left Atlantis and come to the planet’s surface.”

Apparently fascinated by Sheppard’s ever darkening skin tone, Rodney appeared unable to drag his eyes from his friend’s face. “Huh? Oh yes, yes. All safe and sound.” His eyes crinkled in concern. “Seriously, you okay? Maybe you should have a drink or something?”

Looking like an aneurysm was in the offing any time now, Sheppard’s eyebrows snapped together so hard they practically joined up. “Gee, I don’t know Rodney. Any reason I shouldn’t be okay?” Without waiting for a reply from his erstwhile teammate – and not even considering the possibility that Ronon would reply –Sheppard breezed on with dreadful faux cheerfulness. “Maybe you’re thinking of the fact that you both disobeyed direct orders – many, _many_ times – and implemented a plan that could have destroyed not only the wraith but all the humans too! Or, hey, I know, managed to drag Zelenka into the insanity. Or what about the fact that to kick your plan off you managed to deplete not only Atlantis’ power supplies, _all_ of them, but the last remaining ones on Earth too....”

Rodney scowled. “Well it’s not like they were doing anything useful with them. Let the whole planet get taken over by wraith, remember?”

“Shut up!” Savagely Sheppard jabbed a quelling finger into Rodney’s chest, ignoring the subsequent howl of protest at his action. His eyes slid to the side and he roughly informed the wall over Rodney’s shoulder, “Dammit, McKay, you scared the shit out of me.”

Rodney blinked, momentarily thrown by the hoarse earnestness in his friend’s voice and then said uncertainly, “Yes, well, I suppose we’re sorry about that.” He glanced up at Ronon. “Aren’t we? Sorry for scaring them?” He looked back at Sheppard in appeal, “But you guys just wouldn’t listen to me and I was so right. This was the only way and I was the only one who could do it.” He flashed a reluctant, crooked grin. “And I saved your president too. Look, right there, all hale and hearty!”

Hayes tensed when all four members of the team stared at him for a moment and then glowered darkly when Sheppard spat, “Yeah, _that_ was my biggest concern, McKay.” and O’Neill burst out laughing in response. Sheppard looked momentarily chagrined, mumbling, “Sorry, sir.” before continuing to McKay, “You just left me there, Rodney. Not even a word. Just left.”

Rodney opened his mouth and then closed it again, his entire face betraying his bewilderment at Sheppard’s unheard of display of insubordination and base emotion. His eyes moved uncertainly to their rapt audience and then back to his team leader. “I’m sorry?” His eyes moved back to the president, O’Neill, SG1 and the rest of the room and he coughed uncomfortably. “Uh, really, _really_ sorry.”

Hayes turned to O’Neill with a quizzical expression and indicated the two men practically sparking up the room with emotion. “They got the memo about the whole ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ thing right? No chance they got it confused with ‘Show and Tell’?”

O’Neill shrugged and pulled a face at Torren John, watching him with a bemused expression from where he lay in Jack’s arms. “What can I say, sir? Go through it enough times and the Stargate makes you do the wacky.” He flashed a wry smile and winked at Hayes. “But aren’t you glad we’re here anyway?”

And Hayes looked out of his window, over his ruined city, country and planet and then carefully ignored two men hesitantly reaching out to touch trembling fingertips for the first time and said thoughtfully, “Y’know, Jack, I really am.” He looked back at Sheppard and McKay grinning goofily at each other with Ronon and Teyla smiling indulgently on and started to laugh. “It really is strangely comforting.” 

~*~*~*

The End.


End file.
